Jack meets his future bride

I know arranged marriages aren't exactly en vogue anymore, but I would just like to go on the record now of saying that I would totally support Jack Llewellyn Kramer's decision to take Samara Maeve Lopez Herman for his lawfully wedded wife someday. I mean, come on. Wouldn't they be great together?



This is what he did when I said, "Give Samara a hug, Jack!" This is how he gives hugs: cock the head, hold it against the huggable object. But he was very sweet with her. Very uncharacteristically gentle (his cat might tolerate him a lot more if he approached with the same manner) and very delighted to see her. Jack likes babies. He wouldn't stop telling me "baby! baby!" the whole time we were visiting, in case I'd forgotten that that was why we were there. And the first morning he woke up at Beany's house, baby was the first word out of his mouth, as he sat up in his crib and pointed out the open door toward his future bride.

He spent lots of time pointing at her and smiling at her and entertaining her, and she gave him some smiles back for his effort. Of course I was unable to capture any of that on film because he was darting around her like a little hummingbird, too excited to slow down for mommy's camera. He spent a lot of time hovering around her little swing and telling her "whee! whee!" He knows all about swings and how fun they are. Whee-whee is actually his word for swing, I think.



Often he indicated that he wanted to hold her, but I don't think he's quite ready for that yet. It is an interesting new development, though, this interest in babies. For a long time I thought he was just fascinated by little people that were more his size than the big people he spends most of his time with, but now I am beginning to see that he really does differentiate between people that are littler than him, people that are his size give or take, and the people that are much much bigger.

We only had about two and a half days in Chicago to visit Beany and her baby before they headed off to a wedding and we headed off to Minnesota, but it was quality time. This is one of those visits I will remember the rest of my life, long after the dent it put in our savings account and the exhaustion of plane travel with a rambunctious 18-month-old have faded away.  I think one of the most amazing things about friendship at this stage in our lives is watching each other become parents, and the anticipation of watching each other's kids grow up.



I can't believe I was roaming around South America with this girl just six short years ago. I guess six years doesn't exactly sound "short" but it feels like yesterday. It probably always will.